eBay acquires Zong

eBay set to buy Zong, a leading provider of payments through mobile carrier billing for $ 240 million in cash. Zong is a leading mobile payments platform for sellers of digital goods and services. Zong provides secure payment solution with efficient connectivity and service.

Zong facilitates consumers to easily pay for purchases via their mobile phones or computers through direct carrier billing. In order to do payment, consumers have simply to feed their mobile numbers. Thereafter, Zong verifies that number and clears the payment on the customer’s existing wireless service account.

Earlier this year, PayPal launched PayPal for Digital Goods, a new product that lets buyers pay in two clicks without leaving their gaming experience or content site. In 2010, PayPal processed $3.4 billion in payments for digital goods.

With the acquisition of Zong, ebay’s PayPal (Own payment gateway of eBay) will have greater ability to offer consumers even more choices in how they want to pay – virtually anytime, anywhere. Both Zong and PayPal help to enable digital goods merchants to increase conversion, because they offer a faster, easier way for consumers to pay without leaving the merchant’s site.

Scott Thompson, President of PayPal said in a press release “Commerce is changing. With mobile phones, we walk around with a mall in our pockets. PayPal helps to make money work better for customers in this new commerce reality – no matter how they want to pay or what device they’re using,”

PayPal is a leader in mobile payments and digital goods. PayPal expects to transact more than $3 billion in mobile payments in 2011. However, at present, more than 8 million customers are transacting on their mobile phones through PayPal, driving up to $10 million in mobile payments per day. PayPal offers Mobile Express Checkout for merchants, PayPal Mobile Payments Library for developers, PayPal payment apps for iPhone, Android, Nokia and Blackberry, and location-based shopping.

In India Zong has fair presence as all leading networks like Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, BSNL and Aircel support transaction through it. According to the data at Zong website Zong has been able to reach 95 percent of mobile users in India. Meanwhile the acquisition of Zong by eBay will have good impact on overall m-commerce market in India because eBay is the leading online market place where almost 12,800 sellers use its platform everyday.